Hell in One Lifetime
by talking cockerel
Summary: Seven cardinal sins there were that lead to hell, and one by one they were committed by the folly of mankind. Kai, Tala and Bryan teach each other to lead normal, mortal, sinful lives - because they know no other way of surviving.


* * *

**Sloth : laziness, procrastination. Indolence**.

In the end, it was just another passing phase. Time all but dissolved the beyblade hype, their teams had long ago split and scattered, each pursuing different, "grown up", realistic dreams in the realistic, "grown up" world.

Tala and Bryan sat together, side by side in a children's playground, balanced on opposite ends of a broken merry-go-round. It was a wreck, tilted on its own axis and squeaking fitfully from side to side, much like the lives of these two adolescents, inching this way and that with neither progress nor satisfaction.

They were naught but a sorry pair of vagabonds, like wandering livestock that had been turned free by their farmers and had neither wit nor will to survive. Blading had been their life, and without it, without their team and their goal -

The wolf and the falcon had fallen from hunter to scavenger, and finally, in this weary Russian winter, even when they knew they needed the work to have money and food and shelter and warmth –

There they sat, like dumb cows waiting for their daily feed to come; too lazy to care. Too _apathetic. _

"H'lo." One coarse voice barely audible over the howling gale, a tall humanoid outline blurred and distorted by the driving sleet.

No response from the gargoyles perched upon their wintry nest, one a sleek alabaster warrior with red hair, the other a taller lord of granite with still, unseeing eyes.

The one standing joined the ones sitting, and they made quite a sight, three desolate fools freezing their extremities off in the punishing Russian tundra.

"Took you long enough, Hiwatari."

If statues could speak, their voices would be like this, abrasive and ponderous, with the deep echo of earth and age.

"I hope you took our advice and spayed that Chinese tabby, or we'll have your gold-eyed whelps running wild." Another voice, this one cold and snapping like the glacial winds.

"Kon's gone off, Tala," Kai spoke apathetically, settling down into the cursed indolence that had taken the other two. "Went to find his parents. Said he had his dad's name, but never knew his mom's."

"Find his mom!" Bryan snorted. "Some woman who brought him into the world with blood and pain. What difference can a name make?"

Once upon a faraway time they could put a name to joy and delight; then, a name could stir them all to fear, even to rage. All they knew now were the names of friends and foe long out of sight and mind, barely enough to provoke a flicker of memory in their languid thoughts.

If time passed, then it did so with the same indifference of these somnolent individuals, because none felt its passage. Only the snow continued and built up around the three somnolent figures, holing them up on the merry-go-round till they were sunk into an icy cake like candles, one with a navy blue flame, one with a frost rimmed vermillion fire, the other a pale, weak lilac.

Morning, and they were found by some men, who dug them out and rushed them to the hospital.

"Poor lads, too cold to move," one whispered. Their winters were famous for their sleeping draught and the for demanding life.

One of the lads coughed, the red haired one with eyes like sapphire, and through those pale, bone hard lips, the men could have sworn they heard the cynical correction.

"Nah. Too lazy."

* * *

**Wrath.**

To Bryan Kutsnetsov, wrath was the glint of reckless spite in his eyes; wrath was the smouldering flame of hatred in his heart. Wrath was the misery of his tears and the warm, sticky blood of vengeance on his hands.

Wrath was, most of all, watching as Kai Hiwatari appeared, with those bloody eyes and a stack of his damned cash, when they guard unlocked the door and swung him free; not because Kai gave him, a murderer, a condescending look of pity; but because freedom from his prison had come a lifetime and some million years too late, and because no amount of anything would ever bring back his childhood.

* * *

**Gluttony : overconsumption of food.**

"That's right, Ivanov. Stuff your face like the wolf you are."

And Tala would oblige with a happy, idiotic grin, barely chewing before swallowing. Kai would sample each dish daintily before putting his cutlery down, and Bryan – he'd just fuel his body on whatever was available, be it trash or treat. He'd learn not to attach feelings of pleasure to food – or anything else, for that matter.

Tala, now, he was different. He was out to taste life out of the abbey, and taste he did (literally), to the extent that his enthusiasm infected the two other boys. If they would not eat with him, they would at least watch him taste and scuffle and gobble.

"Chew," Kai advised, sipping some vintage wine.

Bryan wiped his mouth on his napkin to hide a bitter sneer. If gluttony was all it took to make his captain happy, why couldn't he be the same way?

* * *

**Envy : sorrow for another's good.**

How is it that one could envy another so much, and be envied by the same person in turn?

Kai envied Tala. Tala had had teammates, friends (at least, a shared bond) and company. Kai had only a cold lonely life in a mansion.

Bryan envied Kai. He, at least, had known a surviving relative. Bryan had had no relatives, nothing to call his family's save the last part of his name.

And Tala, he envied Kai and Bryan both – for their height. He detested being the shortest , if only by an inch or two.

Kai and Bryan both envied Tala's ability to keep that stupid, insensible, childlike faith and belief in everything. Even if it was a hollow make belief, they envied that Tala's make belief was so much more believable than theirs, because then his life and feelings were that much simpler and happier.

* * *

**Lust**

Gone were the three children cuddling miserably in a stone cold bed in a drafty old room. They were grown up now, adult men curled around each other in the master bedroom of the Hiwatari mansion. The fireplace was crackling merrily and the covers were thick, yet they were cold and miserable all the same.

Not physically, but spiritually.

They satisfied their desires that night, burning each other with harsh lips and caressing fingertips, gliding and sliding over long and muscled limbs in the blind darkness. The activity warmed them invariably; they grew slick with sweat and they heaved and panted through whispered teasing and dirty, empty promises. The slap of flesh on skin echoed in the room, the ghostly moans were so soft, as if trying to conceal their shameful crimes, that they were almost swallowed up by the flap of spying phantoms amongst the curtains.

There was the sharp prickle of arousal and the giddying spin of pleasure; one's throat burned as he swallowed another's fluids, another's groin smouldered as he shook with the effort of control, and the last's whole body blaze with ecstasy as he took in all the second had to give.

Finally there was the taut hum of anticipation in their bodies, and the cascade of desperate cries as they released themselves and collapsed into each other's arms, shaking with remembrance and adrenaline.

Little boys grown up into men, playing at lust and desire pretending they would find joy and fulfilment they had lost as little boys in these treacherous, grown up games.

* * *

**Greed - any form of insatiable desire.**

"This stuff's bad for you, you know."

"Shut the hell up, Ivanov, just take one."

"It'll make me look _old._ Like crap. Shit."

"We're both too damn pretty to get old, Ivanov. Look at me, I'm puffing like a locomotive, and I'm gorgeous."

Kai was right, of course. He never looked anything short of alluring. Elegant as wildfire, even sprawled out on the sandy lawn with his hair uncombed and his face paint smudged, a cigarette sticking out of one mouth and several more brandished in one hand toward Tala, with that smouldering, burn-and-destroy kind of deadly beauty.

"I'm serious, Kai. This stuff could kill you."

"Well, I'm not all that keen to live past my prime, you know." Kai huffed away unconcernedly, blowing smoke from pale pink lips.

"You wanna die, make sure you dig your grave first. I don't want a bloody overturned train on my hands, even one as good looking as you." Tala snapped back.

"I don't want to die, you git. Not now, anyway. But one day, when it's not as good as all this. As soon as I'm as handsome and rich and happy as I'll ever be, soon as the best thing in my whole life has happened, I'll die right after that. Because after, nothing'll be able to compare. Ever." He reiterated, his lips curling into a lopsided half-smirk. It was the kind of look that could break your heart.

"That's real tragic and all, Kai. Worthy of emotional teenagers and immature bravado. How're you ever gonna know when you've reached the best moment, huh? Ever thought of that?"

"Well, it can't hurt to try, can it? You ever seen my house, my collection of stuff? It's wonderful. Antiques from ancient civilisations and relics from cultures across the world. State of the art technology, every single form of entertainment one could name. I've got servants at my disposal, women in my bed, money in my bank. I'm getting to the peak, Tala, but I'm not there yet. I could have more stuff."

He had seen it, alright. Whole levels of furniture, rooms devoted to ornate mirrors, embroidered carpets, carved vases – the world in an endless parade of prizes and possessions, stripped of its people.

"And just why do you want so much stuff? It's avarice, that is. 'Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.' Book of Matthew, chapter six verses nineteen to twenty one. Why go round placing more value in your earthly treasure than in your heavenly treasure, when the former's all gonna be for naught when you die?"

"What's heavenly treasure then, Tala? Love?" Kai gave a short, snapping bark of laughter. "Treasure is supposed to make you whole and happy, not cut a part out of you and scatter it to the four winds. Friendship? What we have now, is that friendship? Look at you, in the prime of your life and with nowhere to go, or me, with all my money and nothing to buy. Bryan, with all his skill in the beyblade arena gone to waste, and too old and stubborn to learn anything new. Aren't we merely sticking together because we have no choice? Birds of a feather flock together, and we are misfits of a crowd congregating about. Ha, I made something rhyme. How do you know we're even going to heaven?"

"..."

"When you're sure we're gonna sprout a pair of feathered appendages and a glowing tiara, complete with an eternity in the city of light, then you tell me how to live my life. Before that, I'll have my material comforts, grand yet pathetic as they are, thank you very much. Maybe one day something'll make me truly happy, so that I can die and see if that heaven of yours really exists." Kai blew a puff of smoke through his lips, pale wisps of breath that hung before his face like a plague, grey and abysmal as his own words.

"You're...despicable, Kai...that's nothing short of – hoarding like a rat – " Tala broke off and stared at his friend miserably, sitting on the tire swing and swinging his legs back and forth like a kid; this blatant self indulgence was contemptible and blasphemous. Kai could use Hiwatari's name and influence to help so many more who had suffered like they had – to prevent others from suffering like they had, yet here he was, smoking his life away. Greed was the one thing he never abided by; it angered and disgusted him.

"Whatever, Tala. It's all going to be taken away one day, like everything else I ever had. So why not be greedy while I can?"

"Kai – "

"What?"

"...I...nothing. Nothing..."

* * *

**Pride : The oldest, the original, and the most serious of the seven cardinal sins.**

He was an old acquaintance, all the way back from the time of his cruel childhood. He and pride, they had grown up hand in hand, like friends (because pride made you happy); chest to chest, like rivals (because pride made you angry, too). Finally, they were face to face, because Pride was come to take him home.

Three different boys thought the same thoughts as they left the safety of the shadows and stepped out. No more running from the ones who sought to rid the world of the biovolt's "monsters" and "unnatural creatures." No more hiding from blazing search lights and the ear-throbbing hum of machine guns. No more _fear. _

Because the world they would leave behind would be much crueller and much more brutal than the world they had entered; and because, ironic though it may seem, in their deaths they would be covered in more blood than in their births.

They would leave this world without joy, without love and without any comfort that their lives had been cherished and treasured, but they would leave with joy.

Kai Hiwatari strode out first. With every step he seemed to grow taller and more imposing, till he seemed to take flight as a phoenix in its soaring, burning glory.

Out sauntered Tala Ivanov, slender and deadly as the tundra wolf, his hair its mane set aflame with a strong, persevering fire, his eyes aglow with a melancholic pride.

Last was Bryan Kutsnetsov, the falcon gaunt and implacable on wings of marble and ivory. His gaze bore through the people where they stood with a predatory fury.

"They were kings once, weren't they? Stars, celebrated and untouchable. Captain of the Bladebreakers and the Demolition Boys, victorious champions each of them! Too bad they were unnatural creations."

People would later say that they had been right to act quickly, they had been right to rid the world of these half animal, half human things. But those who had been there would recall to themselves, in the dead of the night where conviction and reality was bested by doubt and dream, the beauty of those three young men, the pride and nobility with which they stood shoulder to shoulder and faced down their enemies, and their quiet, dignified acceptance as bullets ripped through their lean physiques.

They had fallen, crumpled and broken, without crumpling and breaking.

They were each of them experienced soldiers who had killed and killed before, without questioning their orders.

They hadn't questioned this time either, but this time there was a feeling that their three victims – such was the strength of their pride and defiance that somehow, in a way –

They had died without dying.

* * *

Forgive me if Bryan's last name is spelt wrongly. I could never even pronounce it right.

Very well. Read and review, please! And tell me if you think it deserves a sequel as I already have a plot in mind.


End file.
